I personally wouldn't tell him no. If you don't speak that much anyway it should be fairly easy to distance yourself from him. The next time you are the only person aout to talk to and he's starved of conversation, make yourself unavailable to him. Say you are busy or you have something important to finish and you don't want to be disturbed. I wouldn't put up with it myself but you don't have to tlel him anything about your unrest, just try and make yourself unavailable for what he wants.

I agree with Mattmxl - I wouldn't make a point of telling him you want to cut ties with him, that just seems childish. It should be easy to distance yourself from him since you don't talk to him very often anyway and as Mattmxl suggested, just don't make the effort with him when he does try to speak to you. He'll soon get the picture.

Just a quick question - I find it odd that you were even considering telling him that you no longer want to be friends - is this because you want to get some sort of reaction/let him know you're disappointed in him? (or something along those lines...). If that's the case it might not be a bad idea to speak to him about how you feel and give him the chance to change his behaviour and make more of an effort with you. Obviously if he doesn't, then by all means cut ties with him.

Yea, I think I want a reaction. I always get the impression that he doesn't really understand that his actions hurt people. It just seems like no matter how much you make yourself unavailable, or telling him you're busy, its never seems to click that maybe you really don't want to be chatting at all.

But true,in hindsight it does seem childish. I guess I feel like I'm at the end of my rope with this one, and it just seems logical to draw a line. Hmm, complicated.

Some people can be very self absorbed and need to be told that what they're saying/doing is hurtful. I would have it a guess that we've all done things to hurt people and been unaware of it, which is why I suggested that perhaps you should speak to him about it. He might actually be quite upset to think he's hurt your feelings and change his ways, whereas if you don't say anything he'll never know and doesn't have a chance to change. Just a thought.